Carroll scores early, holds off Thunderbirds

Published 8:00 pm, Friday, April 8, 2011

The positive aspect of scoring an early goal is it gets the hardest one out of the way. The downside is, if you don't add to it, you have the rest of the match to worry about allowing an equalizer.

Southlake Carroll scored in the fifth minute against El Paso Coronado and staved off every Thunderbird attack the rest of the way in a 1-0 victory in the Region I-5A semifinals at Grande Communications Stadium on Friday.

"We were lucky, but I'm pleased to get out of here. That was an outstanding team," Southlake Carroll coach Greg Oglesby said. "I thought we played very well at times, but there were times they had the better of play. They're very quick, fast and aggressive. They kept the ball for a while and I think we got tired after chasing the ball around."

Coronado (19-8-1) was forced to control play after falling into an early hole.

"That's kind of our game plan because I'm usually good in the air," Horvath said. "I know they aimed for me near post and I was lucky to get my head on it. We work on that a lot in practice so it was nice that it worked out for us."

From that point forward, there were plenty of close calls, but it was all about the Dragons holding off the Thunderbirds.

Leach himself had a couple shots from about 25 yards out go just over the crossbar.

In the 41st minute, Coronado's Jorge Bilbao made a run to the middle of the field and pulled up about 20 yards out and fired at goal, barely sailing it over the crossbar.

Then in the final moments of the game, the Thunderbirds made one last charge.

After a shot deflected off Dragons goalkeeper Oshick Shams, Thunderbirds forward Carlos Ramirez was there for the rebound but his shot was off.

"Defensively we played very well," Oglesby said. "A couple times we needed Oshick, he came through for us."

Southlake Carroll has yet to be defeated this season and the Dragons were somewhat disappointed to have had to sweat out a 1-0 victory.

However, leading scorer and captain Mac McGuire was battling a pulled groin in the game, so to have come away with a victory with their best player not at 100 percent was certainly a positive for the Dragons.

Even without McGuire at full capacity, Oglesby knows his club is capable of more scoring.

"I'd have liked us to step up a few more times," Oglesby said. "That was a nice goal, but we're capable of scoring two or three goals a game."